The Fourth Floor
by youbeginanyway
Summary: Santana finally thought she might have a shot at a normal life, only to find out that her cancer has relapsed, again.
1. Chapter 1

When most people receive bad news, they first go through a period of denial. At least, that's what the Kubler-Ross model says. Having spent a good portion of my twenty years on this planet wandering the halls of a hospital, I've generally found this to be true. But me? I skip straight to anger and I never really move on to bargaining, depression, or acceptance.

When I walked into the hospital that first day back, I had never been angrier. I don't subscribe to any religion, but that day, I believed in a god. I wanted to believe in a god so that I could hate him. Storming up the stairs to the familiar fourth floor, I channeled all of my anger into some higher power just so that I wouldn't punch every single person that passed me by.

The waiting area was full of smiling families and it took everything I had not to scream at them. How could anyone be smiling on the oncology floor? Ignoring the long line to the reception desk, I cut in front of everyone and impatiently drummed my fingers on the counter to get the nurse's attention. The red-head was on the phone and I wasn't in the mood to wait. I really just needed to watch some Sweet Valley High, pass out, and forget the world for the day.

The nurse, "Emma" as her name-tag said, hung up the phone and raised an eyebrow at me. "Miss, unless you need immediate medical attention, you need to wait at the back of the line." Her voice was sickeningly sweet and it did nothing to help my mood.

Seriously, did this bitch not know who I was? "Listen, I'm Santana Lopez-"

"I don't care who you are, Miss. We have policies here and you need to-"

I held up one hand to keep her from speaking. Her voice was just a little too high-picthed and it was about to push me over the edge. "Look, honey, I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that this is your first day or something, especially since you look like you just graduated nursing school about five minutes ago. You know your boss's boss's boss, Dr. Lopez? Cheif of Staff? Yea, that asshole's my father. I have his pager on speed-dial and he'd be racing through these halls to get to me at the touch of a button. So unless you want an impromptu meet-and-greet in which I explain how you harassed his cancer-plagued daughter, I'm going to need you to check me in, tell me my room number and send some jello my way, stat. Anything but lime."

The look of pure terror on that woman's face was almost enough to make me smile. Almost. I thoroughly enjoyed watching her shaking hands fumble through files until she found mine, muttering something resembling "sorry" as she handed it over. Nothing made these people move faster like threatening to bring the chief of staff to the wing, especially when he's your father.

"Miss Lopez, you'll be in room 422, I'll have another nurse take you down there." She was nervously scrubbing her already impeccably clean keyboard. I guess she was a quirky one. If it wasn't the worst day of my existence, I would have actually felt a little bad for being so harsh.

"Don't bother. I know where it is." It's not like I hadn't practically been living in this hospital since I was a kid. I blew past reception before she could protest with more policies about patients wandering the halls alone. As if any of the rules actually applied to me. I got halfway down the hallway before I was nearly tackled to the floor in a hug.

"Santana! You're an hour late, hot stuff. You're throwing off my entire day."

"Holly, it's generally not advisable for nurses to assault their terminally ill patients. You could have sent me into cardiac arrest. Are you gonna let go of me?"

"Not a chance." She loosened her grip, and with an arm still slung around my shoulder, started walking me down the hall. "First of all, you're not terminally ill. This is just...another little blip. No biggie."

I looked up at her, rolling my eyes. "Can you just like, kill me now? I don't think that the pain is going to be worth it this time around. I've already had enough life experiences. Well, I've had sex, at least."

"Honey, I wouldn't spend the rest of my life in jail - even for you. Besides, you may have had sex, but I would bet you haven't had _good_ sex. Trust me babe, you wanna stick around for that. Also, I totally pimped out your room. I can't let all that work go to waste."

As we rounded the corner to the very familiar room 422, I laughed for the first time all day. Right under the room numbers, written in impeccable script, read "Santana M.F. Lopez." Only Holly. "Did you do this?"

"That, and much, much more. Just wait until you get inside."

"You're going to confuse all of the interns. They might actually think those are my middle initials."

"They'll deal," she said, opening the door. It was the same room I had spent my other two bouts of Leukemia in, but the normally puke-worthy hospital walls were already filled with posters of half-naked versions of Olivia Wilde and Ryan Gosling. The standard roll-away hospital bed had been replaced with a full-sized bed, lined with real Egyptian cotton sheets and down blankets. There was a 48-inch TV hanging on the wall, Nintendo Wii already hooked up. On the bedside table lay a Macbook and every single episode of Sweet Valley High on DVD. It should have made me feel happy and loved, but it only served to remind me how long I was going to be there.

"Your father said to spare no expense on your room - so I didn't."

It took me a minute to notice that there was duck-shaped Pinata hanging in the middle of the room. "Holly, you know my birthday was last month, right?"

"That's not a birthday Pinata, hun. That's an aggression Pinata. I didn't think It would be safe to let you loose around the hospital before letting you take a few swings at something. Here." She handed me a bat. Not a whiffle bat - a real, heavy, wooden bat. At first, I was a little bit offended and reluctant to accept the fact that I'm just _that_ predictable. But honestly, I had been itching to hit something, anything, all day long.

"You might want to stand back."

One swing for having to quit school mid-semester. God, I had actually been getting good grades that fall. One swing for the boyfriend who went running as soon as he found out. One swing for the lying doctors who told me it would never come back again. One swing for having to miss prom in high school. One swing for having to quit the Cheerios. Another one for never having a normal play-date as a kid. Another one for every miserable round of chemo. One for that stupid nurse who pissed me off. Ten at my father, for not being able to fix me. Even more hits at the world, for being so screwed up.

When I finally tired put and the bat down, Holly pulled me onto the bed and held me close. She brushed away the tears streaming down my face, tears I hadn't even realized were falling. I buried my face in her neck and let myself lose it, just for a minute. She held me, stroking my hair soothingly until I stilled in her arms. Pulling back the sheets, she helped me into bed. With a kiss on my forehead and a whisper of "it's going to be alright, baby. I know it," Holly left me to get the rest that I so desperately needed.

A few hours later, I woke up to the sound of high-pitched screaming coming from the hallway. I jumped out of bed and stepped into the hallway to see what was wrong, only to be nearly knocked over by two people in wheelchairs who were quite literally racing down the hallway. Things had certainly gotten a lot more interesting around there. That red-head, Emma, hustled by after them, mumbling something about establishing a speed-limit policy on wheelchairs. The two offenders came walking back around the corner giggling- clearly the wheelchairs were for amusement purposes only.

One of them, a girl who looked about my age, had the most infectious laughter. I couldn't help but smile watching her get so much amusement out of such a silly game. She was wearing the most ridiculous outfit - thigh-high socks, little spandex boy-shorts, and a tye-dye shirt. Somehow, she pulled it off. Even completely bald, this girl was gorgeous. She picked a red hat off the floor that had obviously blown off on her wheel-chair joyride and put it back on her head with a cute little smirk in Emma's direction. As she came closer, her strikingly blue eyes caught mine and she skipped over to me.

"Sorry about nearly killing you back there. Hi. I'm Brittany S. Pierce."

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...

This is more of an introduction - future chapters will likely be longer. This is going to be completely AU, obviously, and Brittana-centric, but any other characters involved will be Glee characters..


	2. Chapter 2

Brittany irritated me. I was okay wallowing in my pit of misery. It was a familiar and comfortable place. I could be angry and sarcastic and nobody could say a word about it. And while my years in remission had me hoping for a normal life, it was surprisingly easy to crawl back into that same hole where I spent most of my high school years. I was back to hating the world again and I liked it. If you could just sit back and spend your days judging people without having to suffer the consequences, I mean, who wouldn't?

But here was Brittany - Brittany who would flit around with sparkling eyes and not a trace of resentment to the world that had dealt her such a cruel set of cards. It was difficult - impossible - to be miserable around Brittany. Even the first day that I met her, I couldn't help but smile just watching her. Brittany took me into her world and made me forget that I was sick. She had me on a high that was better than any of the times I tricked the nurses into giving me extra morphine. It was a relief like I had never experienced in my life. But that instant when I would remember that there was more to worry about than the moment, the instant when all of my fears would come rushing back - there's nothing in this world more painful. I wanted my misery. I had a right to my misery. At least there was consistency in that.

Irritated - that's how I found myself halfway through my first encounter with Brittany. Her wheelchair racing antics had me smiling for a moment, but then I remembered the bone marrow aspiration I had scheduled for this evening. I was back to pissed off.

"Would you mind toning the screaming down like a few hundred decibels? I was in the middle of a nap." Even a beautiful girl couldn't turn me polite on a day like today.

Brittany didn't seem to catch the severity of my tone. "Oh, are you a patient here? Me too! I'm so glad there's going to be someone else my age around, especially since Mike here is going to be leaving soon." She pointed to her partner-in-crime.

"Yea, I'm finally going into remission. But, don't worry Brittany, I'll be back to visit you all the time," Mike said, smiling broadly. I really should've just put in some ear plugs and never investigated the screaming at all. I've never had the maturity to be happy for the patients getting better when I was getting worse.

I threw my hands in the air in mock celebration. I was feeling a little bit dramatic. "Well, whoop-de freakin' do. As fun as this has been, in just a few short hours somebody with a very large needle will be sucking bone marrow out of me. So if you don't mind, I'm going to go trolling for sleep meds and hope that I wake up, like, a year from now."

In what felt like seconds later, I was gently shoken awake by none other than nurse Holly Holiday. I guess they had learned by then that she was the only one who I wouldn't spit death threats at for waking me up.

"Brittany from next door told me to say good luck to you from her."

I rolled my eyes. "Seriously? Ugh. She's really in the next room? I can't handle her sunshine."

Holly laughed as she began to take my vitals and get me ready for the procedure. "When I talked to her, she said you two really hit it off. I'm pretty sure she's planning on making you her new best friend."

"Has she replaced me as your favorite? And, seriously, my encounter with her consisted of me throwing some snark and going back to my nap." I couldn't even begin to fathom how that girl construed our introduction as "hitting it off."

"It's pretty hard to take down Brittany. And you know you'll always be my favorite. I'd like to think that I practically raised you, baby girl. But if anyone could find a way to crush Brittany's spirit, it would definitely be you. Try to avoid that if you can. Everyone around here pretty much loves her. Besides, I think she'll be good for you. She's the one that picked out that duck pinata, and that seemed to do you some good. Just don't tell her that you destroyed it. She kind of has a thing for ducks. You should try to play nice, you can't just stay holed up in this room until you get better."

"If I get better," I replied complete with an exaggerated eyeroll.

Holly was suddenly serious. She stopped her preparations to shake her head at me. "Uh-uh. You've used up your self-pity quota for the day. I'm gonna take you down the procedure room, okay"

As far as procedures go, bone marrow aspirations are pretty quick and relatively pain-free. This was just a warm-up. An annoyance. The worst was yet to come. When it was over and I was back in my room watching mindless reality television, I was finally as content as was possible. Tomorrow, things would get real. My father would come in with ten other doctors to explain the treatment plan and tell me just how bad things were going to get. But for now, things were okay.

Soft knocking at the door took me from my thoughts. It was weird - Holly never knocked and the doctors were done with their final rounds for the night. I opened to door to find Brittany - should've known. She was wearing duck-printed boxers and a loose tank top. That girl really did love ducks.

My displeasure at having to get up must have been evident. I could see her bright smile drop just a little bit when she saw me.

Her voice was soft, not bright and loud like earlier today. "Oh - I didn't mean to wake you up. I just wanted to make sure your procedure went okay..."

"Yea, it went fine. I'm just exhausted, though. Long day," I replied, gently. As much as I wanted to be mean, with the look on Brittany's face I just couldn't.

"Oh, okay well I was going to see if you wanted to hang out, but I guess not. I just got a refill on my medical marijuana prescription, but Mike's gone now and it's no fun to do alone. Maybe I'll see you tomorrow or something. " I realized she was holding a bag of chocolate-chip cookies - pot cookies.

That certainly got my attention. I grabbed her arm as she turned to leave. "Brittany, wait. I am tired, but I was going to maybe watch a little TV before I fall asleep. Wanna join?" I had a distinct feeling that I was going to regret inviting her in, but the allure of being stoned for a few hours was too much to resist. For my father, medical marijuana falls under the category of "cooky medicine." He's a very traditonal man, so this was a luxury of being sick I had yet to experience. Of course, getting pot in college when I wasn't sick was pretty easy. However, inside the walls of that hospital where people shudder at name Dr. Lopez, procuring a prescription from any of the other doctors was nearly impossible.

Brittany smiled and pushed her way into my room. "Wow, you definitely have the best room in this hospital."

"Yeah, my dad is the chief of staff here. I guess that has it's perks sometimes."

After she had a good look around the room, Brittany climbed onto the bed and started bouncing around on it. Seriously, how was this girl even sick? I had to admit she was pretty cute. She moved with grace - even when she was being silly.

"These blankets are really soft," she giggled, rolling around in them. She paused for a moment and bit her lip, looking just a little bit guilty. "I may have gotten a head start on you. Here." She tossed me a cookie. One bite and I was in heaven. I was going to have to keep this girl around, if only for this.

"Oh my god, did you make these? This might be the best thing I've ever tasted."

She didn't seem suprised by the compliment. "Yeah, I'm awesome at baking with this stuff. I can make pretty much anything with it. Careful though, this batch is pretty strong." She curled up on the far side of the bed and buried her face into the pillows. "What do you want to watch?"

"Well, that's good. Strong is what I need right now," I said, settling down next to her. I grabbed another cookie. I needed this to kick in fast. "You mind if I pop in some _Sweet Valley High?_ I always watch that when I want to escape the world."

She looked at me with a slightly confused expression. "I've never seen it."

"Well, that's a crime. If you don't like it, I don't think we can be friends." Wait, when did we start becoming friends? I decided not to worry about it for the time being and went for another cookie.

I felt her hand stop me before I could get to my prize. She was smirking at me as she said, "Hey there now. We have to save some for later. I promised I'd sneak some up to my friend on the sixth floor tomorrow."

"The sixth floor? Isn't that the psych ward?" When I was little, that floor was strictly off-limits for me.

Brittany nodded. "Yeah, my friend Quinn is up there. Don't worry, she's not _that _crazy."

I was a little bit skeptical. They only take the real head-cases for long-term care, but I'd deal with that tomorrow. I couldn't remember feeling this content since I had gotten the news that the cancer was back. In fact, I couldn't feel much of anything. I turned to the TV and let myself get wrapped up in the petty problems of the show's characters. It was beautiful numbness.

When Brittany curled into my side, I watched her blue eyes glaze over as she laughed at the screen. She would laugh at the most random of moments - not even when the show was supposed to be funny. Most of the time I wasn't even sure what she was laughing at, but I could feel the vibration of her laughter against my chest and I couldn't help but laugh too. Eventually, when the high really started to kick in, I felt myself being pulled deeper and deeper into the bed. I let my head drop to her shoulder and allowed the hum of her laughter draw me into a heavy, dreamless sleep.


End file.
